The Spirit of Gregorian Chant - Church Music Association of America

HISTORY AND TRADITION 25
king of Kent. A flourishing school of Roman tradition was founded
at Canterbury. Gregory had provided the missionaries with numerous
books and all objects necessary for the divine cult. From the
history of their activities in England, one infers that Great Britain
saw the first copies of the Antiphonarius Cento. 1 The introduction
of the Chant into the north of England was the work of St. Wilfrid,
who borrowed two cantors from Canterbury, the fountain-head in
England of all Roman traditions. St. Benet Biscop procured for the
monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow the instruction of Abbot
John, Archcantor of the Roman Church, and all of the neighboring
monasteries availed themselves of the opportunity to learn the most
correct manner of rendering the sacred chants. 2
Tradition stayed intact in England with, however, the natural
tendencies toward periodic deterioration which afflicted an art dependent
practically upon oral training alone for its diffusion.
Alfred the Great, a lettered and generous protector of savants and
artists, took particular interest in liturgical chant; it is recounted
of him that he would not suffer a chanter to exercise his art in a
routine way and without possessing fundamentally its technique. 3
St. Dunstan, in the X century, gave a fresh stimulus to Church
music, and to him is attributed the composition of the beautiful
"Kyrie Rex splendens." 4 After the Norman Conquest, however,
chanters from schools in France (which country had received the
Chant nearly two centuries later than the English) were sometimes
brought to England to assist in the endeavor to keep the melody in a
state of traditional purity.
At the requests of Pepin and Charlemagne the Popes at various
times sent chanters to the Franks and to the Germans to teach Gregorian
melody. Charlemagne loved to preside at the liturgical
Offices in the palace, and insisted that his ministers assist with him.
He sent two clerics to Rome to learn the Chant; he also obtained
Roman singers. Petrus and Romanus were two of those deputed,
and legend has it that while crossing the Alps Romanus fell sick and
stopped at the famous Abbey of St. Gall to demand hospitality,
1 Pal. tnus., Vol. XII.
2 Benedictines of Stanbrook, Grammar of Plainsong, p. 8
a Pal. mus., Vol. XII. * Gram, of Plsg., p. 8.